A Thousand Friends
When I first started using Facebook, I was amazed that I could be friends with anyone. I made over a thousand friends, spent hours reading their profiles, and felt like I was more socially connected than ever before. It took me longer than most, but I eventually realized the time I spent on Facebook was disconnecting me from my actual friends. It was hard to admit that a social network made me lonelier. In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General found that about half of all Americans sometimes feel lonely. We're increasingly living alone, spending more time alone, and it doesn't feel good. Vivek Murthy's report found that "The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day."
Genesis 2:15-24
The Lord God took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. And the Lord God commanded the man: "You may freely eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will surely die." Then the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper who corresponds to him." Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper who corresponds to him was found. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, and he slept. He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. And the Lord God built the rib he had taken from the man into a woman, and he brought her to the man. And the man said: "This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She will be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man." This is why a man leaves his father and mother and holds fast to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Moses's favorite word might be "tov," the Hebrew word for good. In the first two chapters of Genesis, he uses it twelve times. The light, land, vegetation, sea creatures, birds, land animals, and everything in between was "very good indeed" (1:31). But in Genesis 2:18, there's a pained reversal: it was not good for the man to be alone. He hasn't sinned or done anything wrong. But when God sees Adam alone, he calls it the one unfinished matter in an otherwise finished work. The negation emphasizes that we were built for one another. When my kids were young, I remember getting permission to go on a silent, solitary retreat. It felt like a dream to sleep through the night and spend an entire weekend by myself. But after I got into the middle of the woods, I realized that I missed having two kids insist I play with them and I missed sharing the beauty of it all with my wife. The first man had everything: sacred work with God as his boss, a garden filled with the fruits of paradise, and authority over every living creature. But after he named the animals, he realized no one knew his name. God provides an answer: a helper, or an 'ezer.' Culturally, I've always thought of the 'helper' as being inferior to the person getting helped, in the sense that secretaries help executives. But the Bible predominantly uses 'ezer' to describe how God helps us. Further, the man recognizes his wife in terms of equality: "bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." While this passage is about the first marriage, it points to a deeper aspect of our design: we were made for tight-knit relationships. Whether we find this kind of closeness in marriage, with siblings, or with brothers and sisters in Christ, it is not good for us to be alone. Marriage is one answer to that ache, but it isn't the only answer. Otherwise, we could look at Jesus and say that his life was not good, too. But he surrounded himself with disciples. He found friendships with Peter, James, and John, as well as Mary and Martha. But why are we made for relationship? Because the God who said it is not good to be alone has never been alone. The Father, Son, and Spirit are three persons united as one God. And Genesis teaches us that our Triune God made us in his image. So all of us, men and women, are made for relationship with God and one another.
The first thing God calls "not good" in all of Scripture is a person being alone. What does this tell us about God?
What have you been hoping would fill the ache that God designed to be met with a person?
Who is one person who knows the real you? When did you last tell them what they mean to you?
Whether you feel lonely or relationally rich, thank God that he made you for relationship, and that he calls you "friend" (John 15:15). Then reach out to one person: "I was thinking of you today, and I'm grateful for you."